Did you notice?

The Ed Board piece deserves a closer look, because it has a lot of good stuff in it:

On the question of allocable segregated fees, the Student Government ought not seek to play the role of taxman. Rather, the legal intricacies of a process that has been riddled with corruption should be handled in the most basic of manners, with a simple “opt-in” system.

There is a healthy debate right now among Constitutional Convention members about how to best deal with student fees. Some have suggested simply tightening the rules and laying out a strict philosophy for the disbursal of segregated fees. Others have suggested, variously, an opt-in or opt-out solution. Personally, I would like to see a cap on disbursal - with a student-wide referndum held any time the Student Government wants to give out money above that cap.

[T]he new Student Government ought to prove truly accessible to all on campus. This means uploading proposed and actual student-organization budgets to a publicly accessible website and offering the student body full access to all government-related documents through the same website. Freedom of Information Act requests should not be a procedural barrier to the free flow of information, as sunshine truly is the best of disinfectants.

The blog is a step. Listening sessions are another step.

Looking through ASM's website, it is impossible to even file a Freedom of Information Request. Budgets also need to be online and searchable - a step I told the Herald on Friday I'd like to see taken.

[A] basic governmental council meant to facilitate shared governance and a small judicial board to present a much-needed check on power ought to constitute the entirety of the new Student Government.

One of Student Government's main planks has always been the reduction of ASM's bloated bureaucracy and a streamlining of committees. We'd like to see the new government pared down as much as possible. How that will ultimately happen will be a product of our listening sessions.

So ultimately, the Herald's piece served as an agreement with our basic principles:

And so our vision is a simple one: a small student government with limited powers checked by a large student body.